We started with an old beer commercial found by Karen Young. I decided to turn it into a DS106 themed commercial and wrote the script. Jim Groom kindly recorded his lines and emailed them to me. So did Karen with added burning dinner sound effect. The Headless Inkspots provided the music. I edited it all together, adapted the poster and bingo! We premiered the commercial as a trailer to ‘Noir on the Couch: An interview on the Femme Fatale in Film Noir with Prof. Young’ on the DS106 Good Spell tonight. This segment is part of a whole show ‘The Fabulous Femme Fatale’to be premiered soon on DS106radio and sponsored by Rockylou Radio. Date to be announced.
We have been watching noir films and forgive this quirky mind but it got distracted with these matches all the flawed heroes in the films have. What were they? I had never seen them. No box. Just the match and it lights up. I asked on Twitter but nobody cared about noir matches ( I wonder why…) I started to think about a commercial for these matches. First I needed to do some research. (Have I lost all my friends, yet?)
So they are called friction matches, but the famous brand is Strike Anywhere Matches. And yes, there are other eccentrics out and there is a web site with the history of matches.
Then there was the matter of the script. I remembered one line from Double Indemnity that started my current obsession ‘They always explode in my pockets’. I looked at various scripts and then decided to adapt the Double Indemnity dialogue:
I bit off the end of my cigar and put the cigar into my mouth. started tapping my pockets for a match, as usual I can’t find one. I hear some smart alec in the distance: They give you matches when they sell you cigars, you know. All you have to do is ask for them. Heck, I know I say. I don’t like them. They always explode in my pockets. In truth I just don’t know how to light them.
Strike anywhere matches. Extra Thick for longer burn time ….but you need to know how to light them.
And yes, somebody has uploaded to You Tube instructions for how to light Strike Anywhere Matches. This is what I like most on the web, I can always find someone who seems more eccentric than I am! So, we download that via Clip Converter. Then pop it into MPEG Streamclip to remove the audio and trim it.
New iMovie is pretty cool. But before that, GarageBand to the rescue to change my voice and record the script. It does female to male, deep and soulful, but there was no femme fatale…
Then, audio and video into iMovie, via an image of the matches. And yes, I think I need to get a life. I had such fun though. I plan to record this for our Radio show as a radio commercial but I am going to ask for help with the voices – Dogtrax does a mean noir hero voice, I need to get my femme fatale though. Any nominations? She just needs to record the last two lines.
Learnt about matches, about how you can find any script movie online, learnt a few more tricks in iMovie. Getting the style right is interesting: black and white not enough, you need high contrast. The transitions matter, I remembered seeing the circle open/close transition in some noir films. Used that. And others details I will bore you no further with.
…and I still laugh when I watch it. Never underestimate the value of a daily smile!
So, I am starting to explore Cine Noir for this run of DS106. At the risk of being burnt at the stake, I am not interested in watching the films! Yet, I love the style of them and the way in which ‘the sets and atmosphere reflect the characters inner turmoil’ or so I read in my overview google dive last night. I also love the typography and how it uses the form to express the emotional tone of the story. It is surprisingly difficult to find out detail about the original types. I have found two fonts that I want to play with: Metropolis and Stroke. It looks like Typewriter can also be used. So how do you get the ‘noir feel’ to an animated gif? Best way to see that was to make one from one of the most famous film Noir I know! Use of light, high contrast and that closed in vignette around the image. I noticed also that everything seems sharp and clean – clothes, posters, people and typography. I like that. How the figure gets closer and closer….scary!
I know nothing about Cine Noir. I now something about Tech Noir as most of my favourite films are about dystopian futures.
There is a lot to learn and, heads up, creative edits of Cine Noir posters will be a pig of a job to do!
The how of this gif will have to wait for now. The joy of being an open participant, no deadlines!
